VB leadfoots!
 

any truth to the rumour that VB have the highest brake "wear" rates of any -73 operator in the world. seems odd,considering Aus. runways are not the shortest in the world. is it something to do with auto brake settings? i have heard of one pax. account of very heavy ldg/braking arrival at MKY and it scared the Bejesus out of all on board.

Here we go again
 

A few years ago I remember seeing a memo from somewhere regarding high main tyre failure rates and asking crews to taxi more carefully.

Interestingly the tyres that were failing were retreads, rather than new items. The crews didn't know that though.

Cost, cost, cost. Gotta keep 'em lowwwww.

How many of you put retreads on your cars? Perhaps I shouldn't ask :)

Mate, if you believe every passenger account about landings, there would be thousands of people never flying again:}

Please!!! :}

I hate bouncy landings, Particularly when I have a hand on the yoke, and I appear to be captain.;)

What sort of brakes are on the 738s? Do they have carbon brakes or steel? If they do have carbon then the brake wear may more be a factor of the taxi-ways in Australia rather than the runways. I'd be surprised if the brake wear was significantly different between VB and QF.

All B737's have steel brakes - ******ed if I know why Mr Boeing hasn't offered Carbon brakes but he doesn't

The big problem with the NG - and this causes the "apparent" heavy braking is the high pressure on the brakes required to disconnect the autobrakes.

It is company policy to use autobrake, and before any one gets clever and suggests that we don't use it - just think of the press headlines if the company decided to not use autobrake for pax comfort and there was an incident....

Having said all that, the NG is quite a bit heavier than the classic and takes a fair bit of stopping when heavy..

Dehavilland it is not company policy to use autobrakes, it is recommended. We can use NO autobrakes if we deem it necessary. In the new SOP's.;)

As far as I'm aware airliners worldwide use retreads, without incident. Surely autobrakes 1 is comfortable enough?

STEELWHEELS
 

I suspect it's all about a/c cycles , Vapp , touchdown point , the timely use and cancellation of reverse thrust and brake use technique on long taxiways.

Why is this an issue on this forum?

VB management will act IF it becomes a problem I would think.

On the 737, can the auto brakes be disconnected by pushing the speed brake lever away from the extended detent ( a la 767)?

Makes for a much smoother transition to manual braking.

dear mofo,
they already have old chap !

Statorblade, that is correct. I also heard that if running late Virgin still have to fly in ECON and aren't allowed to speed up. Can any of you Virgins confirm or deny this?

From memory, airliner tyres can be retreaded up to 9 times providing no deterioration of the side wall is apparent.

This was normal procedure at TN AN and EW and the only time one would be discarded was if the other on the same strut failed and that tyre took the full aeroplane load.

Lots of 727 tyres and wheels around as boat moorings in the 70s.

The number of retreads was stamped into the casing when it was processed.Ie: RT1 - RT2 etc.

Please advise if the 737 has nosewheel braking as did the 727.

Best all

EWL

EWL:

9 retreads is about right. Each time they get redone, they're NDTed for condition.

No nose wheel brakes on 737's (thank God!). As far as wear goes, you change 700 brakes about once every leap year. 800's are a bit quicker to wear. For what it's worth, NG brakes are substantially bigger than classic brakes.

Cheers

NAMD

Big Bottom,

Stick to the boats! We're talking REAL 'planes here!

Dash me down...

PS:
Rule 1: Safety
Rule 2: Pax comfort
Rule 3: Schedule
Rule 4: Economy, In That Order, Bloggs!

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/lolup.gif Thank you for your informative and insigtful post, bloggs. http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk.../notworthy.gif